Undeserved
by Iulia
Summary: A dark take on Naruto's persona, his dreams of becoming Hokage, the sacrifices made to get what he wants, and how Sasuke fits into the whole picture Several mentions of Sasusaku, and some Naruhina


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto

**Author's notes:** This is a dark take on Naruto's persona… so, uhm, there's no comedy... only angst... Naruto's at his breaking point, and that's why he may seem a bit ooc with the bitterness. I hope I didn't mess it up, though, I think I did. Anyway, please read and review. Reviews make my world go round, you know

_**(**_**_A response to the 'We've Seen THAT Before: The Overused Plot Lines Challenge of __Dormant Muses, an lj community)_**

_**prompts: **_

_#10. The world is finally at peace thanks to A and his/her group of friends... suddenly a new menace appears! Can A stop it before it's too late?  
#11. Emo/angst fics, where the narrator or main character wallows in too much personal grief._

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**Undeserved**

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The putrid stench of burning houses and bloody corpses assaults his senses as he walks through the familiar streets of konohagakure. The streets are teeming with people – children crying, injured citizens moaning in pain, adults hustling about, carrying pails of water to the still-burning sections of the town, women sifting through the ever-growing pile of corpses – their voices merging into a cacophony of agony and torture. He wants to shut out the sound, run away, retreat into twelve years ago where everything was all sunshine and smiles and silly D-rank missions and the biggest of his worries was how to outdo his rival. Instead, he forces himself to look at his constituents and to listen to their cries, to probe and to analyze, to forget his own need to cry and to look for a solution, to look at the people who have spurned him and make true his promise to protect them and to love them.

_They're your responsibility now, Rokudaime._

It irks him how vast the difference between reality and fantasy is. In his dreams, the citizens of Konoha would greet him with cheers and applause when he passes through their ranks on the day of his induction into the position he had so desired. Never once did he imagine that they'd all be too busy to wallow in their own despair to even greet him or even look at him.

"Naruto-kun."

A soft and musical voice wafts toward him, drawing his attention away from the depressing sight of the academy consumed by fire and black smoke. He looks at her, then, his blue eyes a bit dull, misty and out-of-focus. It amazes him how she still looks pretty even with her medic coat smothered in blood, her hair matted and her face covered with a sheen of sweat. It swiftly crosses his mind to kiss her, amidst all the disaster, amidst all the tragedy – it would be romantic, a scene straight out of an action movie – it would make his victory a bit less bitter and a bit sweeter.

"The hospital is full, and we're short on medics. Supplies are also running out. I don't think— Naruto-kun?"

Ah, the inevitable slap in the face. Life denies him even the smallest of pleasures – he was denied the pleasure of having a family, of having a best friend, of having the girl he had pined for, of being acknowledged by the people of Konoha on his special day – of course life would deny him a single pleasant memory on this dark dark day. What else did he expect?

He smiles then – a wry smile – it's time to accept that his moment of glory is doomed to be a disaster.

"N-never mind. I'm sorry, Naruto-kun, I shouldn't have laden you with this gloomy news. You should rest. I'm pretty sure you're very tired."

He doesn't bother to answer her. Instead, he grasps at the only semblance of mercy he has received all day, masking his relief with a simple nod, turning away from the eerie translucence of her pitying pearl eyes. He walks away, no longer forcing himself to absorb the extent of the wreckage and to find ways to alleviate the village's suffering, no longer paying heed to the stench of death and decay that hung in the air. He'd worry about that later. For now, he just wants to rest.

The hokage tower looms before him, welcoming and yet strangely foreboding. For the first time in his life, he doesn't wish it to be his – and he thinks that it's the cruelest irony he has ever come across. As much as he wants to, though, he can't go to his apartment. He's still the town's Hokage, and he needs to be in a place where he can easily be found if ever a new situation crops up.

He scales the familiar steps and opens the huge oak doors leading to the Hokage's office. They're heavier than he remembers, but he tries not to dwell on that. He stands at the threshold for a while willing himself to be happy that his dream is fulfilled. He lets his gaze wander over the office – the polished floor, the filing cabinets, the pristine walls, the authoritative desk… then his gaze comes upon the room's windows – the windows which provided the best view of the prosperous and bustling city of Konoha. Now, however, the windows were just giving him the best view of a city engulfed in flames and carnage.

There was nothing he could do to keep the bile from rising, his stomach's meager contents spilling out onto the hardwood floor. Sprawled on all fours, he clutches at his throat, his retching eventually mellowing down into weak hacking coughs.

He stands up slowly, trying to ignore his nausea and spits, trying to rid himself of the sour taste of his own vomit. He steps over the mess he made on the floor and walks over to the desk. Spent, he collapses on one of the chairs designated for the guests, his posture lax. He leans his head back, closes his eyes, and rubs his face with his hands. The actions stop after a while but his hands do not move from their position. He leans over, his back hunched, his elbows on his thighs, and his face buried in his hands. He is completely still, his even breathing almost unperceivable.

"Was it worth it?"

It startles him – this deep voice… familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. It's still as smooth and velvety as he remembers but it's now tinged with a sinister air that, unfortunately, seems perfectly apt. He sits up, alert now. And for a moment, nothing happens. He almost believes that the voice was just a figment of his imagination. Until the high-backed chair, which was turned towards the window a moment ago, swivels to face him. He clenches his teeth as he glares at the face of the person he used to consider dear to him… he's not dear to him now… no, he doesn't even know the guy anymore. But it didn't change much – the "stranger's" face – the angles and lines are finer and more defined, hardened. The dark eyes are duller and the mouth more bitter. But he was still pale, still strikingly handsome, still unreachably aristocratic.

"Was it worth it?"

His visitor asks again, voice louder this time, more insistent.

But he doesn't bother to answer. He's still shocked by the man's sudden appearance. Why now, of all times? Why should the precursor of all the tragedies reappear now at his lowest moment? What is it with life and its cruel jokes anyway? Besides, he isn't really sure that he knows what the man is talking about anyway. The guy's mind was always too convoluted that it was always hard to figure out whether his questions were rhetorical or not.

Instead of pursuing an answer, however, his visitor looks away, face impassive, and swivels the chair to face the great windows once again.

"This peace is temporary."

Brief. Concise. Matter-of-fact. _insensitive._

He still doesn't answer. It hurts to acknowledge that all the sacrifices made during the war were for a temporary peace. The war was devastating, Konoha had sustained major damage. The Akatsuki's Jinchuriki really were frightening forces to tangle with. But in the end, they had won. The war was over. The Akatsuki was obliterated – its members either dead or critically injured. He had bought a few tranquil years for Konoha, but the price was high… the price was always high.

"Was it worth it, then?"

Again with the cryptic question…

"Was saving the village really worth letting her die?"

The words are spoken calmly, almost as if the topic was nothing graver than the weather.

"She was a Shinobi…"

He finally answers, weakly, his voice hoarse, unconvinced even by his own words. Unconvinced by generic, automatic answers to matters too grave for words.

It's the first time he talks about her in the past tense.

And it seems that it's only now that his brain has started to process the unreality of it all – her heroism, her sacrifice, her death.

"… there were many who were wounded, and we needed several strong shinobi to fight the Akatsuki. She died to protect her village. It was her choice. The battlefield needed her. She was a Shinobi."

He continued, no longer talking to his companion, his almost-unintelligible words meant more for himself than anyone else. He slumps in his chair again, deflated, still unconvinced, images of a death that should not have happened flitting through his mind in constant replay.

"She shouldn't have been in the battlefield."

It's almost like déjà vu. He's heard this before, the same advice… only, in a different tense and with a different voice – Shikamaru's nasal drawl, to be precise. 'She shouldn't be in the battlefield', his adviser had said. But he had relented. He wanted to scoff. Geniuses and their better-than-thou attitude. Why did they have to be such know-it-alls?

"Medics of that caliber are not supposed to be expendable when there's a war raging; regardless of how skilled they are in battle. You're a hokage now, you should know."

He doesn't answer, because he doesn't trust himself to speak. Instead, he lets the silence seep through the abysmal rift between them, consuming and awkward and yet more welcome than anything else.

It stretches between them – this silence – broken only by the rhythmic ticking of an unnoticed clock and the distant sound of death and destruction and slow recuperation. He is startled when his visitor rises from the chair to stand by the window. His companion's face, illuminated by the eerie red glow of the burning village, is a beautiful mask of apathy. He is not fooled, however, and he knows that the man standing before him can feel and burn just as strongly as he can, maybe even more. If the man was the uncaring bastard he portrayed himself to be, then he would not have done the things he did. He would not be here right at this very moment, rubbing salt into a former teammates raw wounds.

His companion gestures at an unseen spot outside of the window, his countenance never changing, still the same deceptively flat façade.

"Why wasn't she in the battlefield?"

He knows who his companion is referring to, even without looking.

"Hinata-chan is a medic, her village needs her within its walls."

"And the battlefield?"

The question, clipped as it was, was dripping with sarcasm.

Again, he is rendered silent. Word plays are never easy for him, especially when he has to rationalize a decision tempered with the folly of his own emotions.

"It didn't need her."

"She is a Shinobi!"

He is startled as his companion's voice – loud and wrathful – rings through the room like the crispy crack of a whip. It is the first time that the well-suppressed anger seeps through the crevices and fissures of the apathetic mask.

He is rendered immobile at how bitter his own words taste when they're thrown back at him. He wants to retch again, to expel all his guilt in a torrent of vomit.

"You're worse than trash, Naruto. Then again, we both are. But at least I don't pretend otherwise. You, however, are a sanctimonious pig! You're the biggest hypocrite of them all, Naruto, you're as much of a hypocrite as the very village you lead!"

He doesn't answer, powerless at the statement's sheer truth. His visitor, seemingly exhausted by his own outburst, breaths erratically, struggling to regain composure. Minutes pass, he doesn't know how long they stay there, just looking at each other, a myriad of emotions passing in between those all-too-meaningful looks.

Again, it is his visitor who breaks the silence.

"You were supposed to protect her…"

_–And the demon rears its ugly head._

The sense of betrayal in the soft and tired tone could not be denied, the anger palpable, strong and overpowering despite the fact that the words spoken were barely louder than a whisper.

The crux of the matter is finally revealed – the traitor feels betrayed.

The bastard loved her… the bastard actually _loved_ her. And now that she's dead, he feels betrayed.

_The traitor feels betrayed._

He laughs then, dry and sardonic, and so utterly bitter, his bright blue eyes alight with an uncharacteristic malice. Too many things had happened. He wasn't all sunshine and butterflies. It's simply impossible to be maltreated your whole life and not be bitter. He had a breaking point too.

"I was supposed to protect her? I was supposed to keep her safe and sound within the walls of the village while the one I wanted, the one who would actually choose me instead of a fucking phantom, went to the battlefield and died?"

He prattles on, no longer trying to mask his deviousness, no longer trying to disguise his own darkness. He no longer tries to hide his misery at always being second-best to a guy who has everything he wants in the palm of his hands and yet absolutely refuses to see its value. He no longer hides his hurt at loving someone who would never really love him back and chooses instead to stupidly pine for someone who would always spurn her and hurt her and not treat her like she deserved.

He speaks the truth for the first time, in all its naked and ugly glory.

"I was supposed to keep her safe? For what? So that you could come home one day, fuck her and rebuild your snobbish clan with her? Was I supposed to watch her and keep her safe while you went around doing whatever it was that you wanted and to hand her over the moment you decide to take her back? What did you take me for? A mere steward of your property?"

He finds himself suspended in the air, his circulation seriously impaired by the death-grip on his neck. The room around him spins, and it is all he can do to keep grinning at the contorted snarling face before him. He wants nothing more than to wound, to scar, to destroy, to break the one who always one-upped him.

"Who's the dead-last now, huh? Who's empty-handed now, huh? How does it feel knowing that your Sakura's precious precious blood has dried up and that her mangled corpse is rotting right now, rotting along with that oh-so-precious clan of yours… decaying, getting eaten by maggots, turning into nothing more than dirt! Dirt, Uchiha! That's all you have now, dirt! You have nothing! Nil, Uchiha! Nada!!"

He spits then, all his anger and bitterness focused into that one blob of spittle that he sends hurtling towards the face that he now hates with every fiber of his being. Not a second passes before he finds himself flying through the room, his back coming into contact with the solid wall of the once-prestigious office.

It's so surreal – that he's being beaten up on the day of his induction into the position he's been dreaming about since time immemorial, in the very office of that same position, no less. But he has no time to dwell on it, at his eyes meet with piercing bloody red, black tomoes swirling and forming a pattern he did not recognize.

Seconds stretch into eternity, as he finds himself encased in the worst torture he has ever endured.

_Not her death… not her… don't take her too…_

The spell breaks, and he gasps greedily for air before he slumps on the floor, defeated, broken… broken, just like the one he sought to break just minutes ago.

"Rebuild the city and regain your strength, rokudaime. You'll need it when I come back to show you just how much this village is really worth."

He doesn't bother to look up. He doesn't need to look to know that the mask of apathy is back… he's had more than enough of it.

His visitor disappears then, a whirl of black smoke trailing in his wake.

Outside, he hears a familiar voice – still soft and musical even in agony – engaged in a blood-curdling scream. And he knows – instinctively – that the vision he was shown in that red-tinged dimension has now been transmuted into reality.

He has two battles to fight now – one set in the distant future, revolving around the new cycle of vengeance set spinning by a death that should not have happened. The other battle is of a more personal nature – him grasping at the remains of his tattered sanity, trying to remain lucid despite the fact that all he sees is red.

Today, he brought peace to Konohagakure, but lost his own. He'll fight for it, though, try to regain it – the peace that he doesn't and never will deserve.

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End file.
